Cindy and Mrs. Maguire will speak about Mairead's work that led to her being awarded the Peace Prize along with Betty Williams for their work for peace in Northern Ireland. Also on the discussion table is Mairead's harrowing experience when she was kidnapped by the Israeli Navy along with Congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney and 20 others.

Join us at noon on Saturday, July 18, 2009, at 707 Gillespie Ave, Charlottesville, Va. Kids are welcome! There is no charge, but it is appreciated if you bring something to eat or drink. Please post a comment on this page that you are coming and how many are coming with you. And if you are able to bring something to eat or drink and know what it will be, please post that as a comment on this page, below.

Cindy Sheehan, one of the best known peace and justice activists in the United States, will be joined by other speakers in support of public healthcare at a cookout open to the public and the media. Please join Cindy for lunch at noon on Saturday, July, 18, 2009, rain or shine, at 707 Gillespie Ave, Charlottesville, VA, 22902. Cindy will talk about her new book and the need for an expanded public healthcare system.

My friend, Cynthia McKinney and Nobel laureate, Mairead Maguire and 20 other people were trying to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, which, as I understand, is something that you have encouraged Israel to allow.

The Honorable Cynthia McKinney served six terms in the US Congress and she was the Green Party candidate for the office that you eventually won. It is an outrage that the Israeli Navy would block the boat that she and 21 others were on in international waters and board the boat and kidnap the crew and humanitarian aid workers.

President Obama, when an American captain was kidnapped by Somali "pirates" US Navy SEALS were sent in to rescue him. He was the captain of a private, for profit, ship and the US military was used to rescue him.

"The goal of modern propaganda is no longer to transform opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief."
Jacques Ellul, philosopher

One day in July of 2006, I was on Hardball and the host was Norah O’Donnell who was filling in for Chris Matthews. I was her first guest that day and when she was introducing the show before the first break, she intro’d me as: THE WOMAN WHO MET WITH COMMUNIST DICTATOR, HUGO CHAVEZ. We then went to break and I told Norah: “You know Chavez is not a communist, he’s a socialist and he has been democratically elected several times, survived a CIA coup attempt and the last election was certified by Jimmy Carter.” She replied: “Yeah, we talked about that earlier, but we decided to call him a ‘communist dictator,’ anyway.”

I was appalled, but not shocked. I was born during the day, but not yesterday and I realized a long time ago that the caca that passes for “news” is just that: caca.

For years now, I have been writing about the duplicity of the Democrats and the shocking similarity between the two parties when it comes to the use of state-sanctioned terrorism against innocent populations.

This past week, after the betrayal of every American who elected Democrats to end the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, I am wondering if there is anyone still in this nation who thinks that there’s any significant difference between the war ideologies of Democrats and Republicans.

“Congress must use the power of the purse to end combat operations. When the War Supplemental conference comes to the Floor for a vote I urge you to continue to vote no."
Dennis Kucinich, (D-Oh)

"Voting down the funds for war honors the mandate to end the war in Iraq that was given to this body by the American people in November 2006. Furthermore, defeat of the War Supplemental sends a clear message about U.S. priorities at home and abroad.”
Lynn Woolsey, (D-Ca)

DALLAS - Eighth-grader Steven Rasansky had a front-row seat for a government lesson Monday.

Cindy Sheehan rallies her supporters. (Special to the Star-Telegram/Brandon Wade)

Sitting at his friends' lemonade stand across the street from former President George W. Bush's new home, he watched anti-war protesters and Bush supporters square off with only a city street dividing them.

Front and center in the sweltering 90-degree heat was Cindy Sheehan, the California mother who drew national attention in recent years with her protests near Bush's Crawford ranch as she demanded to speak to him about her son's death in Baghdad.

"George Bush and his administration are mass murderers," she told the crowd, using a loudspeaker. "People say, 'Cindy, get over it.' Well, there are still two wars raging. I don't have an option of getting over it. . . . We have to keep it up so things like this don't happen again."

Anti-war protesters say they want Bush and his administration investigated and prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Sheehan has also demonstrated against President Barack Obama because the Democrat has continued the wars.

During the more than half-hour protest, which included a nearly mile-long march to the neighborhood, protesters yelled, "Don't wait, investigate." Pro-Bush supporters chanted "USA" for the former president whom they say did a good job.

"I think this is crazy," said Rasansky, 13, whose friends had hoped to make some money selling pink lemonade and chocolate chip cookies. "I didn't think it would end up like this."

Bearing signs with slogans ranging from "No war criminals in my neighborhood" and "W = War Crimes" to "Don't Mess with Bush" and "They did not die in vain," more than a hundred people turned out on both sides of the issue.

Dozens of police officers and Secret Service agents blocked the entrance to the Bush neighborhood and patrolled the area. An officer who declined to give his name said there had been no arrests and no problems.

Erika Davis drove from Fort Worth to join the protest against Bush.

"Just because we have a new president, people say you should forget about it," said Davis, a 62-year-old counselor in Fort Worth. "I don't believe anyone is above the law."

Charlotte and Chuck Herman of Dallas turned out to support Bush, holding a sign that read "Bush saved you cowards."

"We think he made a great president and we're glad he moved back here to Dallas," said Charlotte Herman, 64. "We want him to retire in peace."

When I was only protesting George Bush, his administration and the wars, I received a fair amount of media attention, especially when we were in Crawford the first summer. As time wore on and the novelty of having a mother speak out against the atrocities wore off, the coverage dwindled, but never down to practically zippo until I ran for Congress against a "liberal," Nancy Pelosi.

After the Summer of Camp Casey and Katrina, it became really popular to protest and hate George Bush. George Bush slank out of office as the most detested president in American history. However, from the time Casey died until today, my focus has shifted from blaming George Bush only, to blaming the entire system: The Military-industrial-Congressional-Prison-Media-Banker Complex...or whatever you want to call it.

Last week, after being bombarded with pseudo-patriotic images of graveyards, gravestones and flags, I decided to begin posting images of maimed and killed Iraqis, but especially children and transform the mega-pseudo-patriotic Memorial Day to Remembrance of Victims of US Empire Day.

I got a great response to this and my friend and videographer, Clifford Roddy put together a short film called: finaledit, with the images I posted and with images that he took at a national cemetery in Santa Fe, NM where we were together for my Myth America book tour. I have a Cindy Sheehan You Tube page so we posted it there.

The video was just yanked off of You Tube because it “violates the terms of service” but even before it was yanked, it had a warning: “This video is unsuitable for children.”

I was on an airplane flying to Orange County from Sacramento to attend the al-Awda Conference; which is a Palestinian Right’s Conference. Al-Awda translates to “The Returning, “ when the Pilot voice filled the cabin to make an announcement that I think went unnoticed by most of my fellow passengers, but I heard it.

As the plane was on the approach to John Wayne airport, the Captain came on the intercom to remind us all to “remember our brave troops who have died for our freedom.” Even in this post 9-11 paranoid paradigm, if I wasn’t belted in for landing, I would have popped out of my seat at 13D and charged up to the cockpit to let the pilot know that my son was killed in Iraq and not one person anywhere in this world is one iota more free because he is dead.

As a matter of fact, the people of Iraq, the foreign country thousands of miles away where my oldest child’s brains, blood, and life seeped into the soil, are not freer, unless one counts being liberated from life, liberty and property being free. If you consider torture and indefinite detention freedom, then the Pilot may have been right, but then again, even if you do consider those crimes freedom, it does not make it so.

Here in America we are definitely not freer because my son died, as a matter of fact, our nation can spy on us and our communications without a warrant or just cause and we can’t even bring a 3.6 ounce bottle of hand cream into an airport or walk through a METAL detector with our shoes on. Even if we do want to exercise our Bill of Rights, we are shoved into pre-designated “free speech” (NewSpeak for; STFU, unless you are well out of the way of what you want to protest and shoved into pens like cattle being led to slaughter) zones and oftentimes brutally treated if you decide you are entitled to “free speech” on every inch of American soil.

Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, head of coalition forces in Iraq, issued an order last October giving military intelligence control over almost every aspect of prison conditions at Abu Ghraib with the explicit aim of manipulating the detainees' "emotions and weaknesses", it was reported yesterday.

The October 12 memorandum, reported in the Washington Post, is a potential "smoking gun" linking prisoner abuse to the US high command. It represents hard evidence that the maltreatment was not simply the fault of rogue military police guards.

"Myth America: 10 Greatest Myths of the Robber Class and the Case for Revolution." That's the title of a booklet Cindy Sheehan is selling online. I know we have CNBC to set us straight on such things, but I thought I'd check out Cindy's take. Her full-length books have been terrific, and I've published 1,631 shorter articles by or about her, because Cindy is not just a grieving mother. She's a grieving mother who feels betrayed, is mad as hell, is uncorrupted by money, power, or party, would rather die than censor her statements, and gets straight to the heart of a question faster than anyone else I know.

This Saturday on April 04th, my son Casey (and at least 11 other Americans and hundreds of Iraqis) will have been dead for five years. Casey, a humvee mechanic, was killed on 04/04/04 in Sadr City, Baghdad in combat after he had been there for only five days.

Five years have passed in the blink of an eye, and besides missing Casey so much our lives have changed about as dramatically as they could have, as has life of our country.

We just passed the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq with very tepid opposition and President "Change You Can Believe In" is following the path in the Middle East that was blazed by his predecessor, George Bush. Obama’s surge in Afghanistan and on the Afghan/Pakistan border guaran-damn-tees that there will be many more “Caseys” and the people of Afghanistan should not be made subject to more “help” from The Empire.

Tonight, President Obama basically said that we can't demonize every investor who earns a profit, because "we are all in this together." Sorry, but I am going to have to call a big fat "bull-shit" on this one.

When Obama said "we" did he have a mouse in his pocket? Obama, and his family have a very opulent, slave-built roof over their heads. He travels on the public nickel, his children attend an exclusive Washington, DC private school that has organic food on its menu, and has health care that covers everyone in his family from head to toe and side to side and inside out.

Even though he and every member of the administration, Congress and the Supreme Court are not hurting for anything, the bastard (sorry if your parents weren't married when you were conceived) Wall Street banksters are receiving billions of dollars of government welfare and are not so good about being in "this together" with us.

I remember sitting in my living room, six years ago, watching the “Leader of the Free World” announcing that the United States military had just embarked in “shock and awe” against the country of Iraq.

The images made me physically ill, as they had 12 years before when the criminal’s criminal father was bombarding Iraq.

I was also personally sick with fear as my family had “skin in the game,” our son/brother, Casey. On that night, Casey’s life clock starting ticking down: He had exactly one year and 15 days to live from “shocking and awful.”

Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox Green 960 online and on radio!
Donate to Keep your Soapbox on the air! http://www.green960.com
This Sunday (the 8th, from 2-3pst), Cindy chats with super-activist,
David Swanson from After Downing Street Coalition
and
ProsecuteBushCheney.org

Cindy and David talk about the urgency of keeping the anti-war and pro-justice movements alive!

Let's Jam up the War Machine!

Don't forget to reserve your tickets for Let's Jam Up the War Machine! on Thursday, March 19th (6th Anniversary of the illegal and immoral invastion of Iraq) at 7pm at the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland.

At the Grand Lake, Cindy (Nobel Peace Prize Nominee) will be joined by Legendary Anti-War Musician, Country Joe McDonald and Daniel Ellsberg (legendary Pentagon whistle-blower) and other speakers and entertainers. It will be a fabulous night to commemorate the occasion, yet renew our commitment to activism!

I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.
Barack Obama: October 2002

For the record, I did not support Barack Obama for President of this country. Of course the above quote was from his famous “anti-war” speech, that was not an anti-war speech, but an anti-Iraq war speech and this is just a sound bite from a mostly nationalistic and pro-war speech.

I opposed Obama, though, because I actually listened to what he said about foreign policy when he was Candidate Obama. He never, ever said that he was going to withdraw all troops from Iraq and he always said that he was going to increase troop levels, not only in Afghanistan, but also in the military over-all. His budget increases military spending at a time when education, health care, wages and jobs are declining. Obama is a militarist-corporatist and haven’t we had enough of this kind of “leadership” in the past three decades?

Recently, your Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, said that the DoD would be "re-evaluating" the blockade on the press taking photos of the returning flag-draped coffins from the illegal and immoral occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 1991, George H.W. Bush signed an executive order banning those photos and early on in George W. Bush's War OF Terror, his mother, and the wife of the 41st president, Barbara, agreed with that order saying that she did not want to "bother her pretty mind" with the images.
President Obama, first of all, you do not need to have the DoD "re-evaluate" that order. In the transparent Republic that you claim to seek, the Department of War should never get to pick and choose what the members of that transparent Republic see. That seems like military tyranny to me. You can sign an Executive Order reversing the one that the first President Bush signed during the First Gulf War.

Is quality and easy to access health care a privilege for the wealthy, or a basic human right?

Listen to Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox as Cindy chats with two Single-Payer Health Care advocates (Dr. Clark Newhall and Donna Smith from Michael Moore's Sicko) in a very informative edition of the Soapbox. Cindy will also give you a way to get on your own Soapbox about this issue.
If you live in the Bay Are you can listen from 2-3PM (PST) at 960AM; or if you live outside the Bay Area, you can live stream at: www.Green960.com.

Don't forget to send your "Ask Cindy" questions or Soapbox rants (recorded in MP3 form, or written) to: Cindy@CindySheehansSoapbox.com
If you like what you hear, Our Soapbox is supported by listeners, and you can become a Sustaining Member or give us a one time donation.

You call it hope- that fire of fire!
It is but agony of desire.
Tamerlane: Edgar Allan Poe, 1827

The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. …..You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.
Morpheus, The Matrix

In the brilliant movie, The Matrix, reality is not as it seems. The reality that people think they are living is only an illusion, a dream. Keanu Reeves plays the main protagonist and when he becomes unplugged from the Matrix (humans are used as organic energy to perpetuate the Matrix), he becomes the super-hero, Matrix-resister, Neo.

Webster's Dictionary defines empire as: a major political unit having a territory of great extent or a number of territories or peoples under a single sovereign authority; especially: one having an emperor as chief of state.

Even though most of us do not call our "chief of state" Emperor, the USA is most certainly an empire. We have all the trappings of empire (military parades, glorious coronation balls, an elite few ruling the empire) but the Oligarchs (rule by the few) call it a "democracy" so the plebes must buy into the myth that our nation is in any way democratic. Our military is used for spreading colonial capitalism all over the world. Even in the heyday of the Roman Empire, most conquered local governments retained some autonomy, unless, of course, the will of the people conflicted with the will of the Emperor.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. So let's strengthen our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Okay, so the first person of color has been sworn in as 44th President of the USA. I am proud of my country for looking past color and FINALLY electing a non-white. Maybe one day we can have a non-male?

There has been a lot of talk about hope over the course of an insufferably long campaign. Hope is such a hard to grasp, kumbaya, kind of a word…and it means different things to different people. Someone's greatest hope might be to cure cancer; while another's may be to raid another country for its oil; or another's may just be to have a paycheck come Friday.

I could not dig, I dared not rob,
And so I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue,
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale will serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?

Rudyard Kipling, A Dead Statesman

So the day is finally here, the last half day of the horrid Bush administration. George will be leaving with a 22% approval rating and the demented peace of mind that somehow history will vindicate him.

Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies---or else? The chain reaction of evil---hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars---must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

First of all, I would like to thank the student board of the Yale Political Union for giving me the honor of speaking at your organizational meeting for Spring 2009 semester.

This may come as quite a shock to you, hissers and pounders alike, (note: at the YPU, if a student agrees, he/she pounds on the desk; if a student disagrees, he/she hisses) but on this question: Resolved: The protestor does more good than the politician; my position is not on the extreme one-way or the other.

On the one hand, I don't think any relevant or profound changes have come from politicians without the force of a protest, or grassroots movement behind it, We the People are what should give our politicians political backbone, but on the other hand, systemic change cannot be made without the law making or law abolishing roll of the politician.

One of the reasons that I ran for Congress in 2008 was because I could see the limitations of a grassroots movement or activist.

On July 4th, 2006, I embarked on the "Troops Home Fast" with many fellow activists all over the country. We began the fast in front of the White House and we were planning on ending it in front of the White House on September 21st (World Peace Day), but few of us made it that far.

At the end of July, Iraqi Prime Minster, Nouri al-Maliki said he would meet with Medea Benjamin (CODEPINK) and I, when he was visiting DC, if we would end the fast. Maliki, for some reason, left the Iraqi embassy without meeting with us, so the fast continued. However, some Iraqi parliamentarians were shocked and ashamed of Maliki's rude treatment of us, so we were invited to meet with the parliamentarians in Amman, Jordan, and that's when most of the fasters ended their fasts.

The images of bloody babies and maimed children and mothers and fathers wailing in pain are too much for me to bear!

Today, the defense forces of Yahweh's "Chosen People" bombed two UN refugee centers. The schools, which Israel knew were being used as refugee centers (the UN was idiotic enough to give the GPS coordinates?) were demolished, dozens of innocent Gazans killed and Israel makes the convenient claim that Hamas was using the playgrounds as rocket-launching pads, which has been denied by the UN.

"I'm not insulted. I don't hold it against the government. The guy wanted to get on TV and he did. I don't know what his beef is, but whatever it is, I'm sure someone will hear it."
George Bush to ABC News after Iraqi Journalist, Muntazar al-Zaidi threw two shoes at him

I have vacillated over the past 8 years on whether George Bush is the stupidest man in the world, or the evilest. I think that the above statement may prove that he is both. He seriously does not know what al-Zaidi's "beef" is? Does George really believe that his cause was "Noble" and that the Iraqis should be grateful to that "dog" for destroying their country and killing over a million people?

Since my son, Casey was a victim of the US Military Empire in 2004, I have traveled the world and met with people in almost 20 countries that have also been victimized by the US.

Whether it was the First Nation people in Honolulu who could no longer fish or swim in their ancestral waters of Pearl Harbor because of the toxic contamination by the Navy, or my brothers and sisters in Daichuri, South Korea whose village was being destroyed so the nearby Army base, Camp Humprhey could build a golf course, I always walk away from these encounters with an extra steely resolve to try and confront the US Military Industrial Complex wherever I can, and to try and ease the suffering of so many people.

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